一只守护港湾的灯塔猫，以及她不得不离开塔楼的那个夜晚
《灯塔守护者》是一部免费的12页儿童勇敢主题漫画故事。流浪小猫卡斯皮安守护着一座老灯塔，发现一艘渔船正朝礁石漂去，便亲自拉响了雾号拉杆。故事由 ReadKidz 制作，可在本页完整阅读。
漫画画面中的文字为英文，每一页原文下方都附有中文译文。
Every evening, when the sun melted into the sea, a small gray kitten climbed the spiral stairs of the old lighthouse alone.
Her name was Caspian, and she had lived there since she was small enough to fit inside a fisherman's boot.
Nobody had put her there.
She had simply arrived, the way strays sometimes do, and decided to stay.
每天傍晚，当太阳融进大海时，一只小灰猫独自爬上老灯塔的螺旋楼梯。
她叫卡斯皮安。从小到还能够钻进一只渔夫靴子的时候起，她就住在那里了。
没有人把她放到那里。
她只是来了——就像流浪动物有时会那样——然后决定留下。
Caspian took her job seriously. She patrolled each window ledge, her tail held high like a flag. She watched the beam sweep across the dark water. She hissed at seagulls who landed on the railing without permission. This was her lighthouse. Nobody else's.
Every morning, the fishing boats chugged out of the harbor below — wide wooden hulls painted red and blue and sun-bleached yellow.
卡斯皮安非常认真地对待自己的职责。她巡查每一处窗台，尾巴高高竖着，像一面旗子。她望着灯塔光束扫过漆黑的海面。没有得到允许就落在栏杆上的海鸥，她会冲它们嘶嘶叫。这是她的灯塔，谁也别想占去。
每天早晨，渔船都会突突突地驶出下方的港湾——宽大的木船船身漆着红色、蓝色和被太阳晒褪的黄色。
They returned each evening with their nets heavy and dripping.
Caspian watched them from the highest window, but she never went down to the dock.
The dock was loud and smelled of strangers, and strangers made her fur stand on end.
One stormy Thursday, a fishing boat called the *Cormorant* came back wrong.
It limped through the waves with a broken mast, leaning to one side like a tired old dog.
每天傍晚，它们都会带着沉甸甸、滴着水的渔网回来。
卡斯皮安从最高的窗户看着它们，却从不下到码头去。
码头很吵，满是陌生人的气味；陌生人总会让她的毛竖起来。
一个暴风雨中的星期四，一艘叫作 *鸬鹚号* 的渔船回来时不对劲了。
它拖着断掉的桅杆，在海浪中艰难前行，歪向一边，像一只疲惫的老狗。
Its engine sputtered and coughed.
The lighthouse beam swept past it once, twice — and Caspian saw the man on deck waving both arms at the light.
She stared. The boat was drifting toward the rocks.
Caspian had never raced down those stairs so fast.
它的引擎突突作响，断断续续地咳喘着。
灯塔的光束从它身上扫过一次，又一次——卡斯皮安看见甲板上的男人正朝灯光挥动双臂。
她盯着看。那艘船正朝礁石漂去。
卡斯皮安从没那么飞快地冲下过楼梯。
She burst out the iron door at the bottom and scrambled across the wet stones to the signal box — a rusted red lever she had seen the old lighthouse keeper pull, years ago, before he left.
She hooked both paws around it and pulled with every bit of her small, bony weight.
她冲出底层的铁门，踩着湿漉漉的石头奔向信号箱——那里有一根锈红色的拉杆。多年前，老灯塔看守人离开前，她曾见过他拉动那根拉杆。
她用两只爪子紧紧勾住它，使出自己瘦小身躯的全部力气往下拉。
The fog horn bellowed across the water. WHOOOOM. Then again. WHOOOOM. The harbor rescue boat fired its engine and shot out into the rain.
The *Cormorant* was saved.
The next morning, the fisherman from the *Cormorant* climbed the lighthouse path.
His name was Darro, and he was tall and sunburned, with rope-calloused hands.
He sat down on the stone step without a word and placed a piece of smoked fish beside him.
雾号的轰鸣声穿过海面。呜——嗡——。接着又一声。呜——嗡——。港湾救援船发动引擎，冲进雨幕。
*鸬鹚号* 得救了。
第二天早晨，*鸬鹚号* 上的渔夫沿着灯塔小路走了上来。
他叫达罗，个子很高，皮肤晒得黝黑，一双手因常拉绳索而长满老茧。
他一言不发地坐到石阶上，在身边放下一块熏鱼。
Then he waited.
Caspian watched from the doorway for a long time. She looked at the fish. She looked at Darro. She looked at the fish again.
She padded forward and ate the fish in four precise bites.
Darro did not try to pet her. He only said, "Same time tomorrow?" Then he stood up and walked back down to the harbor.
He came back the next day, and the day after that.
然后，他等着。
卡斯皮安在门口看了很久。她看看鱼，又看看达罗，再看看鱼。
她迈着轻轻的步子走上前，用准确的四口吃掉了那块鱼。
达罗没有试着摸她。他只是说：“明天这个时候再见？”然后站起身，沿路走回港湾。
第二天，还有第三天，他都回来了。
Sometimes he brought fish.
Sometimes he just sat.
Slowly — the way trust always moves — Caspian edged closer, then closer, until one morning she sat right beside his boot and let his rough hand rest on her back for exactly four seconds before she stepped away.
The other fishermen noticed.
有时，他会带鱼来。
有时，他只是坐着。
慢慢地——信任总是这样慢慢靠近——卡斯皮安一点点挪得更近，再更近一些。终于有一天早晨，她坐在他的靴子旁边，允许他粗糙的手放在自己背上，整整四秒钟，随后才走开。
其他渔夫注意到了。
They began stopping at the bottom of the path, leaving small offerings on the flat rock there: a silver sardine, a scrap of dried squid, a cork for batting around.
Caspian inspected each gift with great seriousness, as if checking it for proper quality.
他们开始停在小路底端，把小小的礼物放在那里的平石头上：一条银亮的沙丁鱼、一小片鱿鱼干，还有一个可以拍着玩的软木塞。
卡斯皮安非常认真地检查每一件礼物，仿佛在确认它们是否合格。
One afternoon a child from the harbor — Darro's daughter, a girl called Wren, with tangled hair and paint-stained fingers — ran up the path and sat cross-legged in front of Caspian, nose to nose.
"She's not fierce," Wren said, surprised.
"She is, actually," said Darro from behind her. "She just decided we're worth guarding now."
Caspian flicked one ear.
一天下午，港湾里一个孩子——达罗的女儿，一个叫雷恩、头发乱蓬蓬、手指上沾着颜料的女孩——沿着小路跑上来，盘腿坐在卡斯皮安面前，和她鼻尖对着鼻尖。
“她一点也不凶。”雷恩惊讶地说。
“其实她很凶，”达罗在她身后说，“只是她决定，我们现在值得她守护了。”
卡斯皮安动了动一只耳朵。
She turned and climbed back up her spiral stairs to the lantern room, where the beam was already beginning its long, slow circle across the evening water.
Below, the red and blue and yellow boats rocked gently in the harbor.
Their lights blinked on, one by one, like small answers to her own great light.
她转身沿着螺旋楼梯爬回灯室。这时，灯塔的光束已经开始在傍晚的海面上缓缓绕行。
下方，红色、蓝色和黄色的船在港湾里轻轻摇晃。
它们的灯一盏接一盏亮起来，像是对她那束伟大灯光作出的微小回应。
She settled onto the window ledge and curled her tail around her paws. She watched all of them — every boat, every bobbing lamp — with her usual green-eyed seriousness.
Her lighthouse. Her harbor. Her boats.
她在窗台上安顿下来，把尾巴卷在爪子周围。她用一贯绿眼睛里那种认真的神情，看着它们所有的一切——每一艘船，每一盏随波摇晃的灯。
她的灯塔。她的港湾。她的船。
卡斯皮安并不是因为不再害怕才变得勇敢——到了最后一页，她依然是那只讨厌嘈杂码头的猫。改变的是，她开始把谁当作自己要守护的人。如果你的孩子不太容易和人熟悉，这个故事可以温柔地告诉他们：保持距离和深深关心别人并不矛盾。达罗把手放在她背上、而她允许了整整四秒的那一刻，很值得停下来读一读：这里的信任以秒来衡量，而且没有人催促她。
共十二页。大多数孩子大约十分钟能读完；如果停下来看看港湾画面，时间会稍长一些。
它为 7-9 岁儿童创作。句子比初级读物更长，因此年纪较小的孩子通常会喜欢听大人朗读。
里面有暴风雨和一艘遇险的船，但没有人受伤，救援也成功了。紧张的页面很短，结尾很平静。
